Recently, this was brought to my attention. An $8,000 Spider-man pinball machine. Seriously awesome, but blog writing for a living certainly doesn't put an extra nine G's in my pocket that I can blow on such an endeavor, no matter how much I love Spider-Man. So that got me thinking... there's got to be a better way to play some classic comic-themed games, right? I don't mean complex, action-packed, story-filled games for the X-Box or Playstation. I'm talking simplicity. Games to play on your computer when you're bored at work or on the phone when you're bored, well, basically anywhere else. After some research I was able to track down some pretty cool and simple free comic-related games. No money. No five-thousand pound machines with breakable parts. No game consoles.

Fupa is a website that has comic-themed games in many different forms including puzzles, strategy, cards, word games, board games, shooting, driving, sports and more. My favorite was "Marvel Tribute," a fighting game where I squared off against the Incredible Hulk playing as Wolverine.

I then found myself on Marvel Heroes, which was several steps up from Fupa and actually not far off from the Marvel Super Hero Squad game for X-Box. It's multi-player role-playing game created by David Brevik of Diablo fame and after creating a login account I was soon teaming up with a friend and controlling Captain America to save the world from Doctor Doom and his cosmic cube.

After fending off Doctor Doom I realized I can't be at my computer all day so I decided if I wanted to keep the world safe at all times I would have to go mobile. I checked out Playboard and after browsing a host of games I settled on downloading Iron Man 3 for my Android device. It's a fast-paced, 3D endless runner that I found highly addictive and best of all, totally free.

Besides comic books, my other vice is gambling (don't live like me) so I decided to look for some online gambling games that were comic book themed. At Bet Fair, I was able to play three slot machine games with Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman themes. Okay, so this went against my "free" rule but c'mon, it's Wonder Woman we're talking about.

The flashing lights of the slot machines got me wondering about that eight thousand dollar Spider-man pinball machine again. After some digging, I found a free alternative at Toplaying where I could get my pinball on for free on a Spider-man and Batman themed game.

Remember when I mentioned these games were great for when you're bored at work? Now is one of those times. Excuse me, I've got some gaming to do.

About the author:

Jeremy Hollings lives in Harrisburg, PA with his comic book collection and his two cats, Carnage and Chaos. He enjoys writing his own comic books, 80's hair bands and gaming.